


Advanced Unmasking Techniques

by jabedalien



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, M/M, thats it thats the whole fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28649706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jabedalien/pseuds/jabedalien
Summary: hi!! this is just a short thing I’ve been working on in my notes app alongside my (much) longer WIP that will hopefully be done this month!
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Jeff Winger
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	Advanced Unmasking Techniques

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! this is just a short thing I’ve been working on in my notes app alongside my (much) longer WIP that will hopefully be done this month!  
> 

“Craig, I really can’t watch a movie tonight, sorry—“ Jeff starts, then takes a look at the figure in front of him. 

“Abed?”

“You better not be watching movies with The Dean the way you watch movies with me.” Abed replies, raising his eyebrows.

“You mean when you watch a movie until I convince you to start making out with me?”

“Something like that.”

It usually does turn out exactly like that. Abed knows he can’t resist the way Jeff stares him down for more than fifteen minutes, but he puts the movies on anyway. The pretense feels nice. 

“Well I definitely don’t do that with Craig. We actually watch movies, and it’s nicer than you’d think. Also, not that I mind, but what exactly are you doing here?”

Abed shrugs, then shrugs again. “It’s cold in the apartment and Annie isn’t home this weekend. Are you busy?”

“Nope, I rarely ever am. What I’m hearing is you missed me terribly and couldn’t wait till tomorrow to see me?” Jeff teases.

“Well I was laying under my covers twitching for a while, and I got to thinking about how I’m the cold one, and how  _ warm _ you always are, and how you turn the heat up when I ask you to. Annie’s careful about our heating bill.”

Abed smiles a little, hoping it’ll cover for the fact that Annie’s  very careful about the heating bill and he’s constantly freezing and it has a tendency to short all the circuts in his brain, and sometimes he wants to scream when he sees her pressing the down arrow on the thermostat again. He steps past Jeff into the apartment and already starts to feel a little better, the air filling his lungs without freezing his insides.

“Want something to drink?” Jeff asks, opening up a cabinet.

“Tea?” Abed requests, and when Jeff turns to him he blinks, then gets caught in the cycle of it and does it for a few more seconds. 

Jeff doesn’t say anything, just turns away for a minute, but Abed’s sure he noticed, hopes he assumed there was just something in his eye. The coat he’d come here in is still zipped up, bundling him against the warmth of Jeff’s apartment. 

“Can I warm you up now?” Jeff asks.

Jeff has a way of phrasing things where it sounds like he’s asking Abed for a favor when he’s actually doing something for Abed’s sake. It was confusing at first, but now it’s just charming. Almost like Jeff wants to do those things more than Abed wants him to. When Abed nods, Jeff paces over, carefully placing a hand on either side of his neck. The skin there is cold to the touch, just like every inch of Abed, deep enough that his bones are aching with it. Jeff’s hands touch the top of Abed’s zipper, and he nods again, letting Jeff unzip the long green coat so he can shrug off and hang it over the back of a chair. 

“The blanket you like is over there.”

Jeff points when he sees Abed scanning the room. 

Jeff gets on the couch and Abed settles between his legs, pressing himself to Jeff’s chest. He’s so impossibly warm, and Abed can’t get close enough, pulling the fuzzy blanket close and breathing in the smell of coffee and Jeff’s cologne. It could all be comfortable and peaceful if it wasn’t for Abed barely making it two seconds there before his head jerks and bumps dully against Jeff’s chest. 

“Sorry.” Abed says, knowing full well he’s about to do it again. 

“ _ Sorry _ .”

“You know how I told you sometimes I’m not trying to be mean but I sound like an asshole anyways?” Jeff asks.

“And I told you that happens to me at  _ least _ once a day?”

“Yeah.” Jeff replies. “Well uh, is it just me or are you not doing great right now?”

“I’m... not. I haven’t had the best day. It’s my tics, mostly.” Abed says, hitting his foot into the back of the couch. “They come and go, but haven’t exactly been  _ awesome _ lately, and I think they get worse when I’m cold.”

“There any science to support that?”

“Purely anecdotal, but I believe it.” Abed replies, his foot twitching again under the cover. “Then when they’re bad I think about them, and the thinking makes them worse too. Sorry.”

“It’s alright, you don’t have to apologize.” Jeff says. “Do they hurt?”

“Not really.” Abed answers. “That stupid foot one does sometimes, if I crack my ankle or hit something. They just exist to embarrass me.”

“Most of the time I don’t even notice you have them, Abed.”

“I’m not that bad at hiding them, or resisting doing them until I don’t think people are really watching me. At least I think so. I hope so. I don’t know.” Abed sighs. 

“Are they— wait, free rein to maybe be a dick again?”

“Go for it.” Abed says, pressing his cheek against Jeff’s chest. 

He knows Jeff isn’t going to be a dick. Not that he’s  _ never _ a dick, because he’s the leading man and it comes with the role, but he isn’t to Abed, not about things like this.

“Is it also when you do that thing with your face? The blinky thing?” Jeff asks.

“Yep. And when I say things.” Abed mumbles against Jeff’s chest. 

“Sorry, what was that babe?”

For a second Abed considers not repeating it, or trying to make up something marginally less humiliating. But Jeff’s voice is so genuine, a hand reaching up to press circles into his hair and the way he says  _babe_ thawing his chest.

“When I repeat things under my breath and stuff.” Abed says again, not much clearer.

“I always found that sort of endearing, honestly.”

“It bothers me.” Abed sighs. “More than I wanna admit. Just makes it even more obvious to people that I’m crazy.”

“You aren’t crazy.” Jeff says. “Does your body doing things you don’t exactly want it to make you crazy or less of a person somehow? Because I don’t think it does.”

“I guess not.” As he says it, Abed’s muscles twitch and his side jerks a little against Jeff’s chest like he’s being shocked. 

“Sorry.” He whispers, then realizes Jeff didn’t want him to say sorry so much, and feels the urge to apologize for the apology itself.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Yeah, but it’s annoying.”

“I don’t think it’s annoying. And I know we’ve talked about it a little, but you can just exist around me.” Jeff says tentatively, his warm hand wrapping around Abed’s shoulder. “ _You_ you, no masks or hiding or holding anything back for when I’m not looking. I really, really want you to.”

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking for.” Abed replies bitterly. 

Without the masks and the hiding and holding back until no one’s looking, Abed’s... well he isn’t quite sure who that is. But he’s sure they aren’t deserving of Jeff, even less so than he is right now.

Jeff’s hands moves to Abed’s and hold his stiff fingers between his palms. “Maybe I don’t know what I’m asking for. Maybe I really only know half of you. But if the other half loves me anything like this one does, I’d really like to know him too. I promise.”

“You already have so much of me, Jeff.” Abed says, and his face contorts a little against Jeff’s chest. “It scares me.”

“We can do it as slow as you want, alright?” Jeff offers. “You can take it off inch by inch. I don’t even have to know you’re doing it. But I don’t want you to feel like you have to pretend around me.”

“I don’t.” Abed says back. “But sometimes pretending is all I know how to do. Like, what if there’s nothing under all the pretending?”

Abed takes a moment to be furious with the world, at everyone and everything that put a brick in his walls. That told him to “Be himself” but “Not like that”. Every failed interaction and callous reaction that closed the walls in smaller and smaller until Abed couldn’t tell where they ended and he began. 

“I know there is, okay? You’re more than what people think of you as. But I love you either way. If you’re you or someone else or something in between.”

“I love you too Jeff.” Abed says. “No one’s ever asked me to before. I didn’t mask as much with Troy as other people, but we never talked about it. I was sort of just like that with him. You asked, though. It— it means a lot.”

“I just want you to be comfortable with me.” Jeff says quietly. 

“I already am. I was gonna just spend the weekend alone, in fact I was really looking forward to it. But then I was cold and a little lonely and stuck in my head, and I knew you’d make it better.” ” Abed says, tracing his finger down Jeff’s chest. He’s careful to keep it steady, almost reverent in its touch, another inch closer when they’re already against each other. 

“Plus, I’d never let anyone else touch me like this in a million years.” Abed adds.

No one but Jeff has played with Abed’s hair the way he does without getting snapped at, and Abed can’t think of anyone else he could burrow into when he was cold and hurting without feeling mortified by the idea alone.

“Really?”

“Yep, just you. If you weren’t a human furnace you’d be out of luck, though.” After half a beat he continues. “That was a joke.”

Jeff’s laugh is warm and deep, his whole body shaking a little. “I  _know_ . But then again, you telling me you’re joking anyway is always just as cute as the actual joke.”

“You’re the only one that ever knows when I’m kidding. I don’t have the right delivery.”

“I think it’s just fine. You would swear some people have never heard of deadpan comedy.”

Jeff feels a cold spot on Abed’s and puts his hands over it. He carefully pulls back Abed’s sweatshirt sleeve and peers under the covers to see the goosebumps still standing out against his arm.

“I can’t believe you’re still this cold.” 

“You’re helping.” Abed says. “Soon my muscles will be back to their regular scheduled twitchiness and not this bullshit.”

“How are you feeling otherwise?” 

Abed isn’t sure what kind of answer Jeff wants. He starts trying to figure it out, discards any potential responses that include the word  _fine_ , which Jeff doesn’t like, because he thinks they both have too strong of personalities to ever really be feeling just _fine,_ which he’s probably right about. So is he good? Is he  _supposed_ to be good? Then he remembers that Jeff  _ just _ told him he didn’t want him to do this. The thought makes him hollowed out and guilty. He hadn’t even made it five minutes and he was back to his usual position, hiding himself in the back corner of his own brain. 

“Hey Jeff?” Abed asks, swallowing the lump in his throat. “What do you... what do you mean by that?”

“Sorry, was that confusing?” Jeff replies easily. “I just meant with the whole masking thing. You feeling more masky? Less masky? Maybe you feel like telling me more so I stop making words up?”

“I like your made up words, and I’m feeling less masky, so I’ll tell you more.” Abed says. He files through his memories, trying to find something that can put this weird, specific concept that he can’t fully unpack himself into terms Jeff can follow it. It feels impossible, until he sees it. 

“It’s like— well when I was little, probably in kindergarten, my dad was telling me about how I was going to grow up and marry a nice girl. And I asked him if I could just marry a boy one day, if I found one that I liked better than anyone else. Because they would say you’re supposed to marry your favorite person, and I hadn’t met mine yet, but I thought there was at least some chance they’d be a guy. It didn’t make sense to me why I  _ wouldn’t _ be able to, ‘cause kids just don’t think that way. But he told me no, and seemed fairly disgusted at the prospect. So I tossed that whole thing aside and didn’t think about it once for another ten years. Then even when I did think about it again, I still wanted to cut that part of me off.”

“Yeah, one might say I’ve got some experience in that field.” Jeff says. It isn’t upset or pained, just his usual sarcasm. 

“Well it’s like that, but then instead of just hiding my sexuality, it spread to everything. Every part of my personality that people didn’t like I’d cut off, and I’d fill in the gap with something different that I thought they’d like better. It just kept going like that, my whole life, systematically replacing little pieces of my face until there was so little  _ Abed _ and it was all just crap I made up. And the best part was that after all that, they still didn’t like me. Because the mask isn’t that good, considering it’s still  _ me _ that made it, and it never completely hides my face.”

Abed feels tears pricking at the backs of his eyes and rubs the fuzzy side of Jeff’s blanket against his cheek in an effort to distract himself from them, but they escape anyway and get caught in the edge of the fabric. He doesn’t want Jeff to see him like this, despite the fact that Jeff cries in front of him plenty. It isn’t how it’s  supposed to be, he’s the stoic one, it’s what lets Jeff express his emotions to Abed without judgement, that’s their dynamic and it  _ works _ and he needs to stick to the script so it  _ keeps _ working—

He realizes that he’s doing it  _ again _ and that makes the tears really fall, so he presses his head against Jeff’s shirt like hiding his face might make them less embarrassing. Jeff holds him so tight he thinks his ribs might break, but the pressure is comforting all the same. Abed can’t tell if Jeff’s rocking him or if he’s rocking and Jeff is just following the motion, but after a few minutes his breathing steadies and he pulls away enough to see Jeff’s face. Surely he looks like shit, already weathered from the trip here and now his nose is running and tears are still falling from his eyes even though he isn’t making any sound. But Jeff still looks at him like he’s the only person in the world, and presses a kiss to his forehead.

“Abed, I love you so much.” Jeff says. “I’m sorry if me asking brought some stuff up that you probably didn’t want to think about.”

“It’s okay.” Abed answers, his voice still watery. “I’ve just never said it before.”

“Thanks for telling me.” Jeff says, and Abed can see the tears in Jeff’s eyes.

“Why are  _ you _ crying?” Abed asks, then realizes he probably sounds like an asshole.

Jeff laughs a little and wipes his eyes on the back of his shirtsleeve. “Well I can’t just _sit here_ while  you cry. You feeling better now?”

“Yeah, I am. This really helped.” 

“Want me to make you that tea now?” Jeff asks. “I realized like ten minutes ago that I forgot to even turn the stove on.”

“It’s okay, I’m warm now. Can I tell you what I got today?” Abed asks. “I was really excited about it but I didn’t have anyone to talk to.”

“Please do.” Jeff says.

“I— you know what, never mind, you aren’t gonna care about this. And you’ve spent this whole time listening to me talk.”

“I care if you’re the one telling me, always. Plus you’ve got a very sweet voice.”

Abed tries to remind himself that Jeff asked him for this. That he doesn’t need to regulate his interests because he thinks he’ll push Jeff away otherwise. That Jeff doesn’t mind listening to him talk, that he likes the sound even when its too fast or too loud or doesn’t have enough inflection. 

“Cool.” Abed says, a smile ghosting over his lips. “Well I bought this old DVD of Arrested Development for like five bucks, we watched that together, right?”

“Yeah, talk about deadpan.” Jeff smiles. 

“ _Exactly_ .” Abed replies. “I wanted it for the director’s commentary, because you know I like that kind of thing. But they also had an extended cut of the pilot, which was already one of my favorite episodes of TV of all time, and so now I have a version that’s a whole seven minutes longer. There were so many jokes that were cut out entirely, like this whole thing about George Senior going through a ‘cowboy phase’ that isn’t in the regular version at all. Then there were some shots they got rid of that had really interesting angles, plus they must’ve done reshoots because some sets looks pretty different. There’s also a director’s commentary  for the extended pilot, but I haven’t gotten to that yet.”

“Would you wanna watch it with me?” Jeff asks. 

“We don’t have to.” 

“I want to. I’m asking if  _you’d_ be willing to.”

“Yeah, I’d like that a lot.” Abed says. “And I did, by the way.”

“You did what?”

“Found a boy. That I liked better than anyone else.”

Jeff’s eyes widen for just a second when Abed says it.

“Then I guess you can say that makes two of us.”

Abed feels himself dozing off, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of everything, and tried to blink himself awake.

“You can sleep if you’re tired.” Jeff says when he realizes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay.” Abed mumbles. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Abed. Goodnight.”

**Author's Note:**

> if it feels like i wrote this as a backwards way of therapizing myself, i very much did
> 
> also, the extended pilot of arrested development is a real thing i felt like infodumping about so comment and ill link that shit


End file.
